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The Reckoning
"Focuses on the drive to establish the International Criminal Court to handle genocidal crimes, while also passionately presenting evidence to support the need for such a court, as well as proof of the ongoing difficulties in securing international backing."
Recommended - 3 stars
Frank Swietek, Associate Professor of History, University of Dallas)
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Full Review:
Ben Ferencz, who served as a young prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, is one of the interviewees in Pamela Yates' documentary The Reckoning, which focuses on the drive to establish the International Criminal Court to handle genocidal crimes, while also passionately presenting evidence to support the need for such a court, as well as proof of the ongoing difficulties in securing international backing. After recalling the 1998 Rome conference that approved the ICC's constitution and its actual establishment in 2002, the film details efforts by judges and the lead prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo to make it function effectively. The narrative focuses on four cases, three in Africa (Uganda, the Congo, and Darfur) and one in the Western hemisphere (Colombia), pointing out that prosecutors have no police power, but must depend first on persuasion to push countries to take action, followed by appeals to the international community to step in. The court's task is further complicated by the refusal of some major nations, including Russia and China to cooperate out of concerns that their sovereignty would be infringed. Most notable of these dissenters is the United States, whose Bush-era spokesman, U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, offers his defiantly negative views of the court here -- a hostile position that seems patently incongruous for the nation that created the Nuremberg tribunal. Recommended. - Frank Swietek, Associate Professor of History, University of Dallas)
